Peek has built a wide range of products and technologies in the last few years- a full stack hardware/OS/app low-cost smartphone- a port of our cloud apps for mass market embedded OS phones- applications for video sharing and picture sharing on iOS for customers- our core products on mail, social, etc plus games and other apps for Android- customer work on Android- web app layer stuff to power other people's mobile apps- a full toolkit for deploying real-time smartphone apps onto featurephone OSes

In all that work, the products that earned us the least engagement, money, and time -> Android products

We'll announce some of the good results of our work on other platforms soon. But Android, farewell for now. We've decommissioned our various Google Play market apps this several weeks and switched off our apps.

Surprising. (There's also a graph showing the number of active device installs.) Any iOS equivalents where they've abandoned the platform?

Samsung's cross-platform messenger service ChatON has received its most significant update to date.

The update brings many new features and improvements to the ChatON service, which has now hit version 2.0, and is available for Android, iOS, and PC users.

ChatON 2.0 adds a new multiscreen feature to the service that allows users to chat with up to five different devices using a single account. Perhaps the most significant improvement ChatON 2.0 brings is the support for personal computers. Samsung has launched the chaton.com site, which will allow users to carry on their ChatON conversations from a web browser. ChatON 2.0 also offers users the ability to chat with their Facebook, Twitter, and Weibo friends by inviting them to the service.

Samsung developing its own rival to Google Chat? Being cross-platform is a smart move.

If you're an average customer, reviews can be worse than useless for determining whether an app is any good. It can be hard to determine if a negative review is the fault of the app - or the user's phone. Is the reviewer the sort of cretin who complains that a £0.99 app doesn't have the same polish as a £40 video game? Has the reviewer misspelt even the most basic words? These are all warning signs that a reviewer should not be trusted.

Yet, even knowing all these things, it's easy to be seduced by a negative or positive review that sounds plausible but is what we in the industry call "total unmitigated bollocks."

So, gentle reader, I present perhaps the best app review in the Google Play App Store.

And he does. But also has some useful suggestions on how you could get app reviews that would have meaning.

So far, despite Microsoft's best efforts, the tablet world is still very much orbiting the twin stars of iOS and Android.

Having used a Samsung Windows 8 tablet for a few months, I have a theory as to why: you think you want a full desktop computer on your tablet - I certainly did -- but you don't. It simply doesn't work.

In the case of Windows 8 you can blame some of the "not working" on the buggy, incomplete software that is Windows 8, but not all of the problems can be attributed to a shortcoming of touch APIs.

Much of what makes a full desktop interface terrible on a touch screen tablet is simply the whole desktop paradigm was never designed to be used on a tablet and it shows. The Metro interface for Windows 8 is excellent; different, but in my experience really well done.

Where Windows 8 on a tablet falls apart is when you try to bring the software keyboard to the traditional desktop interface on a tablet. The software keyboard takes up half the screen, which makes even simple tasks difficult. How to you rename a file and move it? First you tap it to select it, then you tap the button to bring up the keyboard, then you type, then you touch away the keyboard, then you touch the file again. It isn't just awkward and slow; it's downright antagonizing...

[But] There is a device that just might fit the bill for many a Linux user who thinks they're dreaming of a Linux tablet - the touchscreen laptop.

The touchscreen laptop is exactly the place for an only slightly tweaked OS - touch "optimized" if you will - to succeed. When it's more convenient to touch the screen you can, but when you need to type there's a keyboard available.

The challenge may be that too much choice is creating a complex user experience. There are six or more types of devices bringing the Internet to HDTVs: the TV itself, video game consoles, Blu-ray Disc players, streaming media set top boxes, TiVo, and a few audio/video receivers. While 15 percent of HDTV displays are connected directly to the Internet, that number increases to 29 percent of HDTVs screens due to these other devices. This is driving the availability of around two connected eco-systems on the same TV screen, leading to a confused user-experience as consumers have more than one way of accessing their favorite TV apps.

Six out of ten "smart" TVs are used to watch "over the top" (ie internet), but do you need a smart TV when you've got so many other devices that can do "smart" through your TV? (Thanks @modelportfolio for the link.)

Amazon.com continues to set the standard for customer satisfaction, matching the record high of 88 it set last year in the holiday edition of the Index. Amazon has had the highest scores in the Index for eight years in a row, consistently setting a pace that other retailers don't seem to be able to touch. Their high score is partially because of the appeal and variety of merchandise they offer, a priority area for some other retailers.

Apple gets 80, down 3; Microsoft's online store gets 78, from not playing last year. (Thanks @rquick for the link.)

According to the KDDI sales data, the 5-inch HTC J Butterfly model surpassed the iPhone 5 during the first week (Dec. 10 to Dec. 16) after its launch in Japan. Also, this particular HTC model was ranked the sixth bestseller in the Japanese smartphone market during the same period.

"Consumers in Japan have been well known to be picky," Hsu said. "The sales of the HTC's newest smartphone model are the evidence that the company has made a breakthrough in design and technology to cater to the Japanese."...

"In the U.S. and Taiwan, HTC has also adopted the same strategy to attract customers. On the back of its improved production technology, in particular the high-definition panel, the model has been a hit," Hsu said.

The analyst said HTC could very likely achieve its sales target of NT$60bn for the fourth quarter, adding that this sales goal could even be topped on the back of the Butterfly model's current popularity.

The "Butterfly" is HTC's "phablet" - its take on the Galaxy Note size. The iPhone 5 first went on sale in Japan on 21 September. As the story suggests, there are five phone selling better in the market, though there's no indication which ones. (Likely, Samsung and Sony.) Meanwhile, if HTC hits NT$60bn for the quarter, that means its revenues have shrunk by just 40% year-on-year. (Thanks @rquick for the link.)

Anyway: due to the size of the RSU [Restricted Stock Units] award granted when Cook was promoted to CEO, which will vest over the next decade, Apple's Compensation Committee did not grant him another one in 2012.

Just FYI: that's the same year in which Apple became the most valuable publicly-traded company ever (not counting inflation).

On the other hand, Apple's late co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs famously earned an annual $1 salary.

And it's also worth noting that Cook's base salary was actually increased from $900,000 last year to $1,400,000 in 2012. But, as Apple itself puts it: "Mr. Cook's target cash compensation remains significantly below the median for CEOs of peer companies."